Let’s first take Kirk’s claim that “15 million” of the 47 million uninsured Americans are illegal immigrants. His assumption seems to be that all undocumented immigrants currently residing in the country lack health care. To the contrary, a study (PDF) recently released by the National Institute for Health Care Management put the number of uninsured illegal immigrants at approximately 5.6 million. If the Kirk campaign wants to send over materials supporting their “15 million” claim, I’d be more than happy to post their response.
Secondly, we have Kirk’s assertion no one under the poverty line “lack[s] healthcare in America.” This is just blatantly false. A 2007 report by the Kaiser Foundation found that 36 percent (or 16.7 million) of the non-elderly uninsured have incomes below the poverty level. So why aren’t these folks covered by Medicaid? Because you must either be disabled, pregnant, or have dependents to be eligible for the program — a fact lost on Kirk, apparently.
As they say, read the whole thing. Mark Kirk is dangerously ignorant of the US Health Care system.
Here’s a Kaiser Foundation breakdown on who lacks healthcare amongst the non-elderly (Pie charts are evil, but it gets the point across):
